Excerpt from William Tell: A Drama of the Origin of Swiss Democracy This drama presents at least one distinctive addi tion to the Tell literature, namely: the dramatic form in which it is cast; five acts, related intimately by the sequence of events portrayed, and the absence of the usual divisions into scenes. The play has been constructed without regard for the historical criticism that has greatly shorn the original legend of its fiction. It aims to depict not merely the Tell episode, but the movement of that epoch toward freedom and the unity of Switzerland. Therefore, I have introduced in the final act the death of the Austrian King and the Swiss victory at Mor garten, -which events took place somewhat later than the others. Whatever similarity this play may have to any of the other Tell dramas, is due almost entirely to the legend itself and a similarity of historical sources, for there are extremely few adaptions from previous plays, and those that do exist - less than a half dozen, - are but minor details. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.